Five Ways to Be Grateful

How to unlock the door to gratitude.

On December 9, 1995, Jean-Dominique Bauby, the editor-in-chief of Elle magazine, had a stroke and fell into a coma. Twenty days later he woke up with mental abilities intact but physically paralyzed with 'locked in' syndrome. He could only slightly move his head and eyes. He wrote the book, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, by blinking his left eyelid.

In his book, Bauby describes his life before his stroke and what it is like to be locked into his body afterwards. He wrote it by using a transcriber that went through the alphabet until Bauby blinked to pick the next letter. It took him 200,000 blinks to write the book with an average time of two minutes per word.

Bauby wrote in the prologue:

Through the frayed curtain at my window, a wan glow announces the break of day. My heels hurt, my head weighs a ton and something like a giant invisible cocoon holds my whole body prisoner. My room emerges slowly from the gloom. I linger over every item: photos of loved ones, my children's drawings, posters, the little tin cyclist sent by a friend the day before the Paris-Roubaix bike race and the IV pole hanging over the bed where I have been confined these past six months, like a hermit crab dug into his rock...

I decided to stop pitying myself. Other than my eye, two things aren't paralyzed, my memory and my imagination... My diving bell becomes less oppressive, and my mind takes flight like a butterfly. There is so much to do.

I think of Bauby blinking his way past his paralyzed world, and I wonder: what was his secret? How did he have the strength to struggle through each word instead of fading into his own sorrow? How did he find a way to see what he still had left instead of all that he had lost?

He died soon after his book was published, but he left us the gift of his gratitude. He was locked into his body, but he used his mind to set him free. We sometimes do the opposite by locking ourselves into our own minds, remaining disconnected from our surroundings.

Nothing Here

Last year we were at a hotel next to the Ramon crater in Israel. I was standing at the edge of the crater at sunset, watching the light bathe the red rocks with an ethereal glow. It looked like the world must have looked like at the beginning of time; just the Creator and the space to create a crater. The horizon melted into the earth as the night began to fall.

Then someone a few steps away from me said loudly into her phone, "There’s nothing to do here! I am bored out of my mind."

How do we break free from the 'there's-nothing-to-see-here’ syndrome? Here are five ways to help unlock the door to gratitude:

"I have what I need." This is a blessing we say every morning: Thank You for providing me with everything that I need. But how many of us really mean it? On the days that I think about the words carefully, I am astounded by their truth. God provides me with my every need, with each part of my life designed to enable me to grow and give and fulfill my purpose in this world. I may want a hundred other things. But those are wants, not needs. Don't make your wants into needs.

"I appreciate you." The ‘you’ in this sentence can be your spouse, your co-worker, your friend or even the clerk at the supermarket. And it's nice if you say this out loud, but even if you say it just in your mind, you will not only increase your own sense of gratitude, but you will end up strengthening your relationships. When we become aware of the value of our friends and family members, we end up treating them better and then appreciating them more in a continuous, upward spiral.

"I believe." It is very hard to be grateful in a chaotic, senseless world. We all need to believe in something beyond ourselves. And we need to know what we believe and to not be afraid to stand behind it. When we focus on our values and what we know to be true, we can access not only gratitude for today but also hope for tomorrow's potential.

"This is what I love." I once had the following assignment in a positive psychology course in university: List everything that you love about life. It surprised me how hard it was to begin that assignment, but once I had started, it was hard to stop. The aroma of coffee. The way the sidewalk sparkles in the morning light. A child's laughter. Flowers. Books. Running. Shabbos candles. Deep conversations. The color of the sky after it rains...Even if you pick one thing once a day, it will incrementally increase your sense of gratitude by highlighting what you love in life.

"I want to know." Be curious about the world around you. Ask how things work. Wonder why. Be interested in other people and how they see the world. This will help you to be attuned to your surroundings and to recognize the beauty in your life.

Every now and then I re-read the first paragraph of The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. I think about the times in my life that I have thought that there is nothing to see, nothing to do, nothing to be grateful for. And I blink my own eyes and remember. Gratitude itself is a gift that we are offered each day. It is up to us to see it. It is up to us to receive it. Unlock your mind. There is so much to do.

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About the Author

Sara Debbie Gutfreund received her BA in English from the University of Pennsylvania and her MA in Family Therapy from the University of North Texas. She has taught parenting classes and self-development seminars and provided adolescent counseling. She writes extensively for many online publications and in published anthologies of Jewish women's writing. She and her husband spent 14 wonderful years raising their five children in Israel, and now live in Blue Ridge Estates in Waterbury, Connecticut, where Sara Debbie enjoys skiing and running in her free time.

Visitor Comments: 5

It's always key to draw a line between the 2; what you want and what you need. Thanks for the article

(4)
Lea Kane Splane,
November 23, 2012 4:17 AM

Wonderful article

Thanks for this wonderful article. I love your site. I have been blessed so much by the information here and learn so much.

(3)
Jerry Solomon,
November 19, 2012 2:43 PM

Appreciate clues to appreciate

I have been thinking about how to pray before attacking the turkey. Also these thoughts are helpful for me as a volunteer Hospital Chaplain. Challenging to tell an afflicted person that thre are reasons to express gratitude.

I'm told that it's a mitzvah to become intoxicated on Purim. This puzzles me, because to my understanding, it is not considered a good thing to become intoxicated, period.

One of the characteristics of the at-risk youth is their use of drugs, including alcohol. In my experience, getting drunk doesn't reveal secrets. It makes people act stupid and irresponsible, doing things they would never do if they were sober. Also, I know a lot about the horrible health effects of abusing alcohol, because I work at a research center that focuses on addiction and substance abuse.

Also, I am an alcoholic, which means that if I drink, very bad things happen. I have not had a drink in 22 years, and I have no intention of starting now. Surely there must be instances where a person is excused from the obligation to drink. I don't see how Judaism could ever promote the idea of getting drunk. It just doesn't seem right.

The Aish Rabbi Replies:

Putting aside for a moment all the spiritual and philosophical reasons for getting drunk on Purim, this remains an issue of common sense. Of course, teenagers should be warned of the dangers of acute alcohol ingestion. Of course, nobody should drink and drive. Of course, nobody should become so drunk to the point of negligence in performing mitzvot. And of course, a recovering alcoholic should not partake of alcohol on Purim.

Indeed, the Code of Jewish Law explicitly says that if one suspects the drinking may affect him negatively, then he should NOT drink.

Getting drunk on Purim is actually one of the most difficult mitzvot to do correctly. A person should only drink if it will lead to positive spiritual results - e.g. under the loosening affect of the alcohol, greater awareness will surface of the love for God and Torah found deep in the heart. (Perhaps if we were on a higher spiritual level, we wouldn't need to get drunk!)

Yet the Talmud still speaks of an obligation on Purim of "not knowing the difference between Blessed is Mordechai and Cursed is Haman." How then should a person who doesn't drink get the point of “not knowing”? Simple - just go to sleep! (Rama - OC 695:2)

All this applies to individuals. But the question remains - does drinking on Purim adversely affect the collective social health of the Jewish community?

The aversion to alcoholism is engrained into Jewish consciousness from a number of Biblical and Talmudic sources. There are the rebuking words of prophets - Isaiah 28:1, Hosea 3:1 with Rashi, and Amos 6:6, and the Zohar says that "The wicked stray after wine" (Midrash Ne'alam Parshat Vayera).

It is well known that the rate of alcoholism among Jews has historically been very low. Numerous medical, psychological and sociological studies have confirmed this. The connection between Judaism and sobriety is so evident, that the following conversation is reported by Lawrence Kelemen in "Permission to Receive":

When Dr. Mark Keller, editor of the Quarterly Journal of Studies on Alcohol, commented that "practically all Jews do drink, and yet all the world knows that Jews hardly ever become alcoholics," his colleague, Dr. Howard Haggard, director of Yale's Laboratory of Applied Physiology, jokingly proposed converting alcoholics to the Jewish religion in order to immerse them in a culture with healthy attitudes toward drinking!

Perhaps we could suggest that it is precisely because of the use of alcohol in traditional ceremonies (Kiddush, Bris, Purim, etc.), that Jews experience such low rates of alcoholism. This ceremonial usage may actually act like an inoculation - i.e. injecting a safe amount that keeps the disease away.

Of course, as we said earlier, all this needs to be monitored with good common sense. Yet in my personal experience - having been in the company of Torah scholars who were totally drunk on Purim - they acted with extreme gentleness and joy. Amid the Jewish songs and beautiful words of Torah, every year the event is, for me, very special.

Adar 12 marks the dedication of Herod's renovations on the second Holy Temple in Jerusalem in 11 BCE. Herod was king of Judea in the first century BCE who constructed grand projects like the fortresses at Masada and Herodium, the city of Caesarea, and fortifications around the old city of Jerusalem. The most ambitious of Herod's projects was the re-building of the Temple, which was in disrepair after standing over 300 years. Herod's renovations included a huge man-made platform that remains today the largest man-made platform in the world. It took 10,000 men 10 years just to build the retaining walls around the Temple Mount; the Western Wall that we know today is part of that retaining wall. The Temple itself was a phenomenal site, covered in gold and marble. As the Talmud says, "He who has not seen Herod's building, has never in his life seen a truly grand building."

Some people gauge the value of themselves by what they own. But in reality, the entire concept of ownership of possessions is based on an illusion. When you obtain a material object, it does not become part of you. Ownership is merely your right to use specific objects whenever you wish.

How unfortunate is the person who has an ambition to cleave to something impossible to cleave to! Such a person will not obtain what he desires and will experience suffering.

Fortunate is the person whose ambition it is to acquire personal growth that is independent of external factors. Such a person will lead a happy and rewarding life.

With exercising patience you could have saved yourself 400 zuzim (Berachos 20a).

This Talmudic proverb arose from a case where someone was fined 400 zuzim because he acted in undue haste and insulted some one.

I was once pulling into a parking lot. Since I was a bit late for an important appointment, I was terribly annoyed that the lead car in the procession was creeping at a snail's pace. The driver immediately in front of me was showing his impatience by sounding his horn. In my aggravation, I wanted to join him, but I saw no real purpose in adding to the cacophony.

When the lead driver finally pulled into a parking space, I saw a wheelchair symbol on his rear license plate. He was handicapped and was obviously in need of the nearest parking space. I felt bad that I had harbored such hostile feelings about him, but was gratified that I had not sounded my horn, because then I would really have felt guilty for my lack of consideration.

This incident has helped me to delay my reactions to other frustrating situations until I have more time to evaluate all the circumstances. My motives do not stem from lofty principles, but from my desire to avoid having to feel guilt and remorse for having been foolish or inconsiderate.

Today I shall...

try to withhold impulsive reaction, bearing in mind that a hasty act performed without full knowledge of all the circumstances may cause me much distress.

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